What makes the best Roast Potatoes?

We love roast potatoes in our house. It is what we look forward to the most on Sunday, the meat is the side dish to our roast potatoes. (And I love my meat!)
During the summer months when we are having Sunday BBQ instead of our Sunday roast, we would still have roast potatoes with them. That is how much we love them.
So “What makes the best roast potatoes?” I ask you.
Is it how long you parboiled it for?
Or do you parboil it at all?
Is it the type of fat you use to cook it with?
The temperature of the oven?
The seasoning?
The type of potatoes?
Or all of the above?

If you ask me I would say all of the above but if you ask Emma-Jane she will say “it’s the one mummy makes” and I think that is the same answer for a lot of us. Apart from me, I am from Thailand and my mum has never made me roast potatoes. However I think Emma-Jane is only saying that to be nice to me so that I would make roast potatoes for her every day!!
Last Summer Emma-Jane did the most amazing thing with her roast potatoes. She has asked me during our Sunday lunch if she could have a tea spoon? Which I gave it to her and then my husband and I watched her eat out all the middle of her roast potatoes with the tea spoon!! Then she poured the gravy in to the middle of her roast potatoes and popped the whole thing in to her mouth!!
How amazing does that sound? I got myself a tea spoon and did the same thing. Yum….

Ok, back to roast potatoes. It is the one humble thing that is going to make your Christmas dinner shine. It does not matter if you have burnt the turkey or the family are as usual failing the attempt to make “we are going to do our best to get on this Christmas” works.
Once everyone has sit down around the Christmas table dishing up all the gorgeous food and they have spotted how beautifully golden and crunchy your roast potatoes looks. They will forget everything else and have a happy gravy fill roast potatoes Christmas day.

This is how I make my roast potatoes. It might not be the best for you but it is for me (and Emma-Jane)

Like everyone I would peeled, cut and wash my potatoes then put it in to a pot of cold water and bring it to boil for 5-10 minutes depending on how much I am cooking. I do like my roasties to be on a smaller size but that is purely for aesthetic reason. I just don’t like big pieces of potatoes on my plate.

While the potatoes are boiling, I would put some vegetable oil and a pinch of sea salt in to my baking tray and pop it in to the oven to heat up. I like my oil to be nice and hot when I add in the potatoes.

Drain the parboiled potatoes in a colander and give it a shake to fluff up the potatoes.

Fluffy parboiled potatoes

Then I would bring the preheat tray out from the oven and rest it on a low heat on the stove to maintain the temperature of the oil. Then slowly add in the parboiled potatoes and give it a good mix around in the hot oil. Making sure to coat the ail around every potato. Then back in the oven it goes. I am not that fuss with the temperature of the oven at this stage as more than likely I will be cooking the meat in there too and the potatoes will go in at the same temperature with the meat for now. The last 20 minutes is the most important part to me. At this stage you meat has come out of the oven and is resting nicely, the meat juice from the tray is being deglaze to make gravy. This is when I crank the oven up to 220c and let the potatoes crisps up, the heat will also help to evaporate the oil from the potatoes and leave you with a less oily potatoes. That ladies and gentleman is my stress free roast potatoes.

Roast potatoes

I would sometime serve roasties as a snack on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day. For this I would make it more bite size and I would season the potatoes in the last 5 minutes of cooking with a few spoonful of dry stuffing mixed. Yes, I know! I said dry stuffing mixed. Trust me it is great on roasties. It just adds that instant flavour and crunch to it.

Oh, and the answer to my question “what makes the best roast potatoes?”
The answer is “Love” the love of the good all humble roasties that is what makes the best roast potatoes.
Note: English is not my first language. Please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors.